Marvel vs. DC Redux Matchup #2: Superman vs. Gladiator

The tricky thing I find about these matchups is figuring out how each of the characters would end up duking it out. The main reason for this I find, is that when it comes to DC characters a lot of things end up as a fist fight, and thus most of the DC characters have superhuman strength, whereas a large portion of the Marvel characters do not. Superman was a particularly difficult subject to find a matchup for, since he is so strong. I'm certain that there beings equally "powerful" as Superman in the Marvel universe, say perhaps some of the more powerful beings like Magneto or Graviton, I had even considered Silver Surfer to be an adequate matchup against the Man of Steel, however, when considering that this matchup would ultimately degenerate into a fist fight, I needed to find a balance in strength as well as compensating for his other powers. The original matchup had Superman pitted against the Incredible Hulk, which is understandable, as Hulk feasibly has no upper limit to his strength. However, I believe that I've found a more appropriate adversary in Gladiator from the Shi'ar Empire, whose abilities do match that of Superman's.

Marvel vs. DC Redux Matchup #1: Batman vs. Punisher

So now we get started. Logic would dictate that perhaps Bruce Wayne (Batman) is perhaps more comparable a matchup to Tony Stark (Iron Man), both being extraordinarily rich entrepreneur types (Wayne Enterprises and Stark Industry), no powers so to speak, and nifty gadgets (though with Iron Man most of his gadgets are built into his suit), but in all honesty, Batman as a detective type character was never one to rely on technology whereas Iron Man as a character is almost solely based on technology. Thus I decided that instead a better matchup for the renown detective of Gotham would perhaps be the vigilante cop Frank Castle, a.k.a. the Punisher. I figure two vigilante justice type folks would provide an interesting matchup.

Marvel vs. DC Redux

So I know I've been posting a lot of random more "profound" things lately, and decided I wanted to lighten things up a bit. In 1996 there was a crossover between two major comic book companies, DC and Marvel. Now at this point in time, I might have totally geeked out on a majority of my reading audience, which I suppose is small enough to either be really hard (to reach a majority), or really easy, in that I'm really geeking out. Anyways, I figure, I've been rethinking it, and there are some matchups I'd like to explore. The original crossover featured the following matchups:

Hulk vs. Superman
Captain America vs. Batman
Storm vs. Wonder Woman
Wolverine vs. Lobo
Namor vs. Aquaman
Quicksilver vs. Flash
Thor vs. Captain Marvel
Jubilee vs. Robin
Spider-Man vs. Superboy

Among various other ones. While some of these are interesting, I'd like to revisit this concept with some modified matchups. Some will be the same and some will be different. These are ones I think interesting or appropriate. Of course, this is entirely my opinion so it may differ. I'm not immensely familiar with DC characters, and there's a certain degree of difficulty making appropriate matchups (in my opinion) given that DC characters have such generic abilities (flight, superhuman strength/speed, etc...). That notwithstanding, we'll give this a go. I'll post matchups one by one and give my takes on them. Feel free to completely ignore them or follow along. Cheers!

On a lighter note...

I kind of posted about this earlier, but now with the advent of the new hit musical Rock of Ages, it's gotten me thinking a little more.  While the concept of shoving as many great radio hits into some semblance of a storyline would be cool, wouldn't it be that much more hilarious if it were entirely out of context?  I think that's part of what made Mamma Mia a great hit, well sort of.  Not that I don't want to see Rock of Ages, I totally do, but the story is too contrived to fit these songs in, of course, that's probably the easiest way to do it, but what if, what if we took something completely unrelated and then throw in stuff that marginally works?  I'm not claiming this would be an immediate hit, but it definitely would make things interesting, and I think hilarity would ensue.  For example, I love Phantom of the Opera, and I'm sure now Andrew Lloyd Webber would be turning in his grave to see me do this to his musical, but you feasibly could replace the score with songs by The Police, and it would still kind of work.  I mean, I can totally see the Phantom singing Every Move You Make rather than Music of the Night or something.  Someone is now going to throw something at me, so I'll stop.

The New Musical Era

After seeing Mamma Mia recently, I've decide that a decidedly fun way of spending time would be to write musical scripts. Of course, Mamma Mia was inspired by the musical workings of ABBA, so thus, I wondered, could not other artists be taken and epic comedic stories put on stage as well? Say, what about a musical inspired by the works of Starship Jefferson, Journey, The Police, Queen, or even Boyz II Men? The possibilities are endless, simply either make a compilation of best of... or simply take an album and fit all the songs somehow into some sort of convoluted story line. It makes musical theater that much more interesting when you can sing along to the songs.

The Future of Computer Portability

Well, I'm no expert on any thing, but here's my take on what would be cool for future laptop development. I was inspired this morning after a brief discussion regarding the Macbook Air. Simply put, I believe that the future computer ought to be a Nintendo DS with holographic projection. Interface could be done using the stylus and switching between the screens, and standard use could be a keyboard projection from the touch screen and the monitor projection from the second screen. Dunno, I think it'd work.